Until the war ends… :: Charter'97 :: News

It might be not by chance that such three memorable dates have met at one and the same week: 19 June is the day of his birth, 22 June is the last day of his life and the first day of that horrible war known by Vasil Bykau in the smallest detail.

It might be a coincidence. But nevertheless it is also the reason for recalling the great son of Belarus, for touching upon his books, for meditating. But unfortunately this June his name has not been heard. It was the PAN-center that called for placing flowers on his grave. Today there are white-red-white carnations and cornflowers there. Thanks at least for this.

And where is the great country, which has been declaring with great effort its independence? Is the war drum still sounding?

Yes, a certain screened version has flashed past the TV but most likely on the occasion of the greatest heroic deed when the party and the Soviet people… and so on.

And what about Vasil Bykau? Not the one who is to be commemorated for the sake of ideology but the real war hero. He is from Belarus, he is the Belarusian who is known and read all over the world. Honor of the nation. Time passed after Belarus had come out into the streets of Minsk to say “Good by” to its great son.

Has any street been named after him? Not at all.

All the Bolshevik Rabble was commemorated in the names of our main streets and squares. Not a single butcher was forgotten. If any Russian guerilla had happened to be passing by, his name was worshiped forever.

Let’s leave the streets alone! The society had raised certain sum of money for publishing the collection of his works. It was an excellent idea to give all the books to the libraries for the country to have the chance of reading not distorted by censorship but the full-value works of Bykau. Some librarians received the books with gratitude, others received but hid them till better times and still others refused to take saying that it was the wrong time for that. May be another time when the long-awaited freedom will come.

Unfortunate country. By declaring to the whole world its BSSR’s origin it predetermined its unenviable destiny. It took the soviet waist to the future and now it doesn’t know how to deal with it.

This country named Belarus has liberating uprisings, the Great Lithuanian Principality, the Belarusian People’s Republic, the ancient Polatsk State behind her. And behind the BSSR there is only the notorious bolshevism, the war. All the might of propaganda was directed to worshiping of the war history because any other history was not available.

Actually by the efforts of propagandistic generals the great monument to the people’s deed under the leadership of the party when the entire soviet people unanimously… etc. Such wave of all the people’s love to that war and all-round soviet patriotism was raised that it seemed it would be enough for centuries.

But the real soldier of that war came, commander of the 45-caliber cannons’ unit, twice injured, buried alive and he told about the events he had seen; and everybody understood that lies were senseless. Then the mighty soviet power together with its marshals, generals, secret services unleashed the war against him.

There is no power of those times, there is no eighteen-year- old gunner who at that war saw such things that all the soviet people were reluctant to see and to understand. The bitterness of his truth was unbearable. For that he had been revenged during all his life and has been revenged until nowadays. When he was alive the revenge was through meanness, now through silence around his name, through attempts to delete his name.

And war is war, no matter what war it is. It ruins and destroys. And it’s a disgraceful, incredibly wild war against the honorable Belarusian Vasil Bykau has been destroying our souls, ruining Belarus.

Until the people make the authorities stop this war.

hhhhh